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it seems that durability is the same. Aeroplane still last longest. but somehow i feel that the crispness on impact is worse than before.

i went through the gym today looking for used Aeroplane Black. the low quality one has now completely penetrated the market. i cannot even find any old high quality ones anymore.

Yeah, I got my order more recently (April 2012) and it looks like I've got the newer "low quality" ones so far. Just based on the last time I played, I ended up using four shuttlecocks. Three had the normal wear, but one came out with the same warping in the leather around the cork base. It's been a bit more humid in Bintang the past two weeks, so it's harder to do an apples-to-apples comparison on the durability.

Oh my, this could explain why my Aeroplane blacks suck recently! The only reason why I was willing to buy them was because I thought they would last long! I go through a few birds every game now. I havent used any other brand other than Aeroplane black for many years, but recently bought a tube of zelm as its way cheaper and lasts about as long as the new aero blacks. Why pay premium price when it's going to deform just as fast!

I have recently bought aeroplane black shuttles in Australia. I have noticed that the feathers break out easily and sometimes it's hard to use them for one game. I compared them with a batch of Aeroplane green shuttles i had and found actually those were better and durable than the black one i received.

I was playing with Aeroplane green shuttles for a while and moved to black ones co'z i've seen many ppl saying they are durable than the green ones. Heavily dissapointed.

I've cut and check the cork and it is natural so no problem with that.

Oh my, this could explain why my Aeroplane blacks suck recently! The only reason why I was willing to buy them was because I thought they would last long! I go through a few birds every game now. I havent used any other brand other than Aeroplane black for many years, but recently bought a tube of zelm as its way cheaper and lasts about as long as the new aero blacks. Why pay premium price when it's going to deform just as fast!

Can you do us a favour? Can you cut open a used Zelm shuttle and post a pic here for comparison? And where did you buy them from? I'm still looking for the ideal shuttle at a cheap price. Thanks.

I have recently bought aeroplane black shuttles in Australia. I have noticed that the feathers break out easily and sometimes it's hard to use them for one game. I compared them with a batch of Aeroplane green shuttles i had and found actually those were better and durable than the black one i received.

I was playing with Aeroplane green shuttles for a while and moved to black ones co'z i've seen many ppl saying they are durable than the green ones. Heavily dissapointed.

I've cut and check the cork and it is natural so no problem with that.

i collected more new/bad Aeroplane Blacks from the gym and they all have severely broken feathers. either snapped in the middle or a feather snapped as whole.

Can you do us a favour? Can you cut open a used Zelm shuttle and post a pic here for comparison? And where did you buy them from? I'm still looking for the ideal shuttle at a cheap price. Thanks.

Sure I'll cut them open this sat. They're actually Hang Yu No.1 Aqua, I couldn't edit the brand in my post earlier I'll see if I can get my hands on some Zelm in the coming weeks. I bought it off Tedski on the forums who orders it directly from the Rep. I'll be honest, although Aeroplane blacks die easily now, I still like the feel over many brands. But at $8-10 difference PER tube it's getting hard to justify using them just for the feel when the durability sucks. I really hope Aeroplane decides to go back to the old formula, as currently Yonex AS50's are only a little more for the full cork.

I was talking to others about this thread and some were very disappointed and couldn't believe that a company that was known for quality has decided that the bottom line was more important. I think we could all agree that we would have been less let down had these actually been fakes or if there was at least an announcement so we can consider our options. Finding the fact after user led investigations makes us all feel a little cheated. Being the only company with the 3rd cork SURFACE layer almost seems like a scam because definately hides the changes. At least the other companies with 2 layer synthetic you can clearly see it! We've played badminton for 15 years and not once have any of us thought about cutting the shuttles in half to analyze. I'm glad to have this community around because although I felt something was wrong with my new batch, I probably wouldn't have figured it out

My coach mentioned that he could get Yonex AS50s for $24/tube on a bulk buy from Taiwan. Is that a good price?

I'm wondering if I should take up his offer. Cuz I'm currently paying those prices trying out different shuttles anyways. I was hoping to find something suitable and maybe pay around $15-20 per tube on a bulk buy. It's nice to play with A+++ shuttles once in a while (even if I'm not that good)

not sure if this idea was covered and if it was, sorry for the repost, but is there anyway we can recycled the cork? i see a lot of people reuse used birdies for practice/warmup purposes, but i also see a lot of people just toss the birdies to the trash after they are done. if there's a way to recycled or reuse natural cork maybe it will help with the shortage, and better for the environment?

on a more negative note, the price of the shuttles might still be higher if there is a cork recycling system. the reason for this hypothesis is that i see paper being more expensive when it's recycled paper, the higher the % of paper being made from recycled material, the higher the price. what do you guys think???